Riley v. Thompson

In Riley v. Thompson (1924) 193 Cal. 773, the state Controller sought a writ of mandate to transfer to the state treasury a special fund created by statute to pay the salaries and operating costs of the commission that regulated harbor pilots. The fund was financed from fees collected from harbor pilots. ( Id. at p. 778.) The state Controller argued that money in the fund should be absorbed into the treasury because the state budget contained a small appropriation for the commission, even though the budget allocated no funds to pay the commissioners' salaries. ( Id. at pp. 776, 780.) The California Supreme Court denied the writ, concluding that neither the state budget nor former article IV, section 34, abolished the fund. ( Riley v. Thompson, supra, 193 Cal. at pp. 778-781.) Furthermore, the court in Riley held that the commissioners' salaries were properly paid from the fund, despite the absence of an allocation in the budget for this purpose. ( Id. at p. 781.)